The desert around Swakopmund seems to stretch away forever and forever. In the centre, this small, holiday town nestles on the edge of the cold Atlantic, waiting to welcome foreigners and locals alike. Although it is busy all year, it fills up more than usual during December. I struggled to find backpackers accommodation at short notice. Not that I’m complaining – I ended up staying in a lovely, comfortable B&B (Hotel-Pension D’Avignon). Between backpacker stops in Windhoek, a nice, comfortable bed and my own shower for a night wasn’t exactly a hardship.

Accommodation establishments aren’t scarce in the town, which is probably an indication of just how popular it is. They are scattered all over the place, many of them in beautiful old, occasionally nation-monument, buildings. Some are more distinctive than others. Turning a corner and coming upon the Hotel Europa Hof was delightful – a picture of (possibly movie-ified) old Europe, complete with dark roof and edging and window-boxes full of flowers. The government-run Youth Hostel is situated in the old army barracks, built in 1905 to house the 2nd Eisenbahnbaukompagnie while they built a landing jetty in Swakopmund. Pension Prinzessin-Rupprecht-Heim was once an old German Military Hospital, built in 1901.

The town is littered with other beautiful old buildings, too. The Woermannhaus Building, the old prison, the old station, Hotel Eberwein. It is also small enough to see everything on foot. I spent hours just wandering around town and just soaking up the atmosphere and the history.

For those with a turn for adventure, Swakopmund is jam-packed with companies offering desert-based activities ranging from gentle walking and more serious hiking to sky-diving, sand-boarding and quad-biking. I missed out this time because I wasn’t organised in time – in retrospect, arriving on a Saturday was not ideal – but I’d definitely like to try it when I go back.

I plan to go back. It’s the kind of place I’d like to see again. A jetty stretches into the cold sea, a perfect place from which to watch a perfect ‘V’ of cormorants or a lone seal playing in the surf. The beach is small but neat. The roads are wide and inviting. The way the setting sun catches the lighthouse and paints it golden in the early evening, when you’re wandering home from an early dinner at the Lighthouse Pub and Grill is magical.

The museum is also lovely. It is relatively small but has great variety. There is a skeleton of a welwitschia plant. I am fascinated by welwitschia and was sad there wasn’t time to see them this time around, but this was a great second-best. The other desert plant and animal info was also interesting, along with the stories of Namibia’s colonial history. Of course, I could learn most of this from the history books, but there is something about seeing the actual, tangible artefacts that makes it so much easier to learn. Museums tend to capture the little stories that history books miss. Also, social history is often better captured in models and artefacts than in books.

In this case, apart from a great display on traditional cultures in Namibia, there was a super section on settler social history, including – amazingly – an entire, life-size model pharmacy. The archaeology section also had some super displays highlighting local early history and the importance of Namibia for human history in general.

The red dunes of Namibia are tantalisingly close to Swakopmund and the town itself is definitely worth a visit. Next time round, I’d like to spend longer there and get to know it better but even my short visit has left me with memories of walking in the early, chilly, misty morning among houses transplanted from so far away and a gentle life of history and holiday-makers that carries on quietly between the cold, blue Atlantic and the hot, desert sun.